RESUMO
We assessed self-consistency (expressing similar traits in different situations) by having undergraduates in the United States ( n = 230), Australia ( n = 220), Canada ( n = 240), Ecuador ( n = 101), Mexico ( n = 209), Venezuela ( n = 209), Japan ( n = 178), Malaysia ( n = 254), and the Philippines ( n = 241) report the traits they expressed in four different social situations. Self-consistency was positively associated with age, well-being, living in Latin America, and not living in Japan; however, each of these variables showed a unique pattern of associations with various psychologically distinct sources of raw self-consistency, including cross-situationally consistent social norms and injunctions. For example, low consistency between injunctive norms and trait expressions fully explained the low self-consistency in Japan. In accord with trait theory, after removing normative and injunctive sources of consistency, there remained robust distinctive noninjunctive self-consistency (reflecting individuating personality dispositions) in every country, including Japan. The results highlight how clarifying the determinants and implications of self-consistency requires differentiating its distinctive, injunctive, and noninjunctive components.
Assuntos
Personalidade , Normas Sociais , Adulto , Austrália , Canadá , Comparação Transcultural , Equador , Feminino , Humanos , Relações Interpessoais , Japão , Malásia , Masculino , México , Filipinas , Percepção Social , Estados Unidos , Venezuela , Adulto JovemRESUMO
In the self-enhancement literature, 2 major controversies remain--whether self-enhancement is a cultural universal and whether it is healthy or maladaptive. Use of the social relations model (SRM; Kenny, 1994) might facilitate resolution of these controversies. We applied the SRM with a round-robin design in both friend and family contexts in 4 diverse cultures: the United States (n = 399), Mexico (n = 413), Venezuela (n = 290), and China (n = 222). Results obtained with social comparison, self-insight, and SRM conceptualizations and indices of self-enhancement were compared for both agentic traits (i.e., egoistic bias) and communal traits (i.e., moralistic bias). Conclusions regarding cultural differences in the prevalence of self-enhancement vs. self-effacement tendencies, and the relationship between self-enhancement and adjustment, varied depending on the index of self-enhancement used. For example, consistent with cultural psychology perspectives, Chinese showed a greater tendency to self-efface than self-enhance using social comparison and self-insight indices, particularly on communal traits in the friend context. However, no cultural differences were observed when perceiver and target effects were controlled using the SRM indices. In all cultures, self-enhancement indices were moderately consistent across friend and family contexts, suggesting traitlike tendencies. To a similar extent in all 4 cultures, self-enhancement tendencies, as measured by the SRM indices, were moderately related to self-rated adjustment, but unrelated, or less so, to observer-rated adjustment.
Assuntos
Adaptação Psicológica/fisiologia , Comparação Transcultural , Relações Interpessoais , Autoimagem , Ajustamento Social , Adulto , China , Ego , Família/psicologia , Feminino , Amigos/psicologia , Humanos , Masculino , México , Princípios Morais , Estados Unidos , Venezuela , Adulto JovemRESUMO
A new measure of implicit theories or beliefs regarding the traitedness versus contextuality of behavior was developed and tested across cultures. In Studies 1 (N = 266) and 2 (N = 266), these implicit beliefs dimensions were reliably measured and replicated across U.S. college student samples and validity evidence was provided. In Study 3, their structure replicated well across an individualistic culture (the United States; N = 249) and a collectivistic culture (Mexico; N = 268). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs overlapped only modestly with implicit entity theory beliefs and were predicted by self-construals in ways that generally supported cultural psychology hypotheses. Implicit trait beliefs were fairly strongly endorsed in both cultures, suggesting that such beliefs may be universally held.